GameCentral examines all the newly announced hardware and online features for the PS4, and the secrets still to be revealed.

DualShock 4 – not Sony’s most shocking revelation of the night

If you’ve read our initial update and games round-up you’ll already know that Sony didn’t do things by half when it announced the PlayStation 4. Although the console itself wasn’t shown the new DualShock controller was, along with a wide range of first, second, and third party games. Plus, it got a confirmed release date of Christmas 2013, in the US at least.

But there are questions still remaining, such as why the console wasn’t shown. Is that just because it isn’t finished yet or is Sony holding back some unexpected secret about its design?

Why, despite some otherwise detailed technical information, wasn’t there anything about it using a Blu-ray drive? Does that mean it will be download-only and/or that it requires a constant online connection? We don’t think so – next gen games such as Destiny have already been confirmed as coming on a disc – but there must be some reason for omitting the information.

We’ll put these questions to Sony when we have an interview scheduled tomorrow, but the behind-the-scenes scuttlebutt is already insisting that the PlayStation 4 will play second-hand games – despite rumours to the contrary. Hopefully we’ll get an official confirmation of that this week.

The other answers may take longer – if Sony had wanted to talk about them it would have already – but there was still a surprisingly large amount of information to be getting on with.

Surprisingly Sony started almost immediately by talking about the PS Vita, and although no new games were announced for it the company made it very clear that it saw the handheld as having an important part to play in the future of the PlayStation 4.

Sony acknowledged that the world, and the world of video games in particular, had changed enormously since the PlayStation 3 was originally designed, and so most games would be cross-compatible with smartphones and tablets – and the PS Vita.

For the mobile devices this may be simple apps to monitor your progress or keep in contact with online friends, but the PS Vita will be used for remote play of most new PlayStation 4 games (Knack was demonstrated live on stage, although there seemed to be quite a bit of lag). This mimics the off-TV mode of the Wii U GamePad, with Sony hinting that other devices might also be able to use the feature in the future.

Although there were some notable omissions, such as whether it uses physical media, Sony was quite explicit about the PlayStation 4’s innards. Although it seemed most keen to emphasise that it wouldn’t be using any more needlessly exotic hardware like the Cell chip.

Instead it will make use of fairly standard PC components, including a ubiquitous X86 CPU and an ‘enhanced PC GPU’ (i.e. a version of an existing PC graphics card, although it wouldn’t say from which maker). The PlayStation 4 will also have a hard drive as standard and 8GB of unified memory (a very good thing to judge from the cheers from the audience at this point).

The console itself might not have been shown but the new DualShock 4 controller was, although given the recent leaks there were no real surprises. The front of it was described as having a touchpad (i.e. the same as the back of the PS Vita) rather than a touchscreen, but the strange light on the top did indeed turn out to be for motion control reasons.

PlayStation 4 is watching you

It works with a new version of the PlayStation Eye webcam, which now looks like a cross between a Wii sensor bar and Kinect – and essentially has functionality that falls somewhere between the two, since it allows the console to monitor where and how you’re holding it.

No one but the developers were allowed to have a go on the DualShock 4, but it was described as having ‘tighter’ controls, ‘enhanced’ rumble, and less latency.

The PlayStation 4 as a whole was repeatedly described using five words: Simple, Immediate, Social, Integrated, and Personalised.

The first one is obvious enough but the term Immediate seemed to be an acknowledgement that the PlayStation 3 can be a real pain with its constant need to download patches and install game files before being able to start a game. The PlayStation 4 will start-up almost instantaneously and has a new Suspend button that allows you to pause it and set it into a standby mode that allows you to later resume exactly where you left of.

You can download in the background while doing other things, including playing games, and you can even download a game and start playing it before it’s finished.

A focus on social networking isn’t surprising, but as rumoured one of the big new features of the PlayStation 4 is being able to automatically record your progress in a game and then instantly upload it to friends simply by pressing the Share button on the controller.

Integration is where all the smartphone and PS Vita connectivity comes in, while the personalisation options involve the console getting a feel for your likes and dislikes and making suggestions for you – and ultimately even guessing what you’ll like and downloading it automatically for you. Which seems clever, but not exactly the best way to encourage someone to try new things.

Finally, the use of cloud computing company Gaiki, which Sony bought last year, was largely as expected in the sense that it will be used to handle backwards compatibility with PlayStation 1, 2, and 3 software.

It amounts to more than just that though, with founder David Perry promising that the PlayStation 4 would have the ‘fastest gaming network in the world’. Again the emphasis was on being able to instantly play any game without waiting for it to finish downloading, as well as integration with the likes of Facebook and UStream.

The latter seemed to be the primary inspiration for built-in spectator and multi-casting options which not only allow you to watch other people play in real-time, but also join their game and shout encouragement and advice. Or you can do the opposite and go online looking for help in a game that you’re stuck on – even allowing the other person to take over your console and do it for you.

Perry implied that not all of these features would be available at launch but it seems a sensible use of Gaikai’s technology and if, as is rumoured, the Xbox 720 and PlayStation 4 turn out to have almost identical graphical abilities it could turn out to be one of the most important distinguishing features for Sony.

We’re sure to learn more details over the coming weeks and months, but for now at least that’s all Sony had to say.